


Not Be Left Alone

by Hannah



Category: BioShock
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Gen, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 14:15:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man, a woman, a porch. A long-overdue conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Be Left Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ZiGraves, Fannybawws, and TheOldAeroplane for beta-reading. Title comes from the song 'Take A Picture' by the band Filter.

One of the first things Jack asked Tenenbaum after Fontaine’s death, writing carefully as to not disturb the little one sleeping in his lap, was, _What’s her name?_

“Charlotte.” She reached out to stroke the little one’s hair, loose from the pigtail.

_How old is she?_

“Six. Greta, Charlotte, Ruth, all six. Jeanine, she is almost six. Masha turned seven three months ago.”

_They’re older than me._

She froze, then went on as though she hadn’t. “Yes, they are.”

It wasn’t difficult to decide to settle away from the ocean. Tenenbaum had long since had her fill of the sea, and Jack told her – wrote on paper scrounged from her office, his throat still bearing that awful voice – that he had been told he came from somewhere inland. For all she hated Fontaine, for all she hated what he had done, she had to admit it was a clever move on his part to keep Jack as far away from Rapture as possible until the very last moment.

There were still days the girls took their toys and hid in the cellar with the windows shut tight, or never left the house. Those days came fewer and fewer. No longer did they hide behind her and Jack, but kept pace with them, and would even run ahead – what they had grown up with left them unafraid of so many things they were supposed to fear, and more than once she had seen Jack rush to grab one of them to keep her from danger, for him to drop down to look her in the eyes and angrily sign why she should have been more careful.

Tenenbaum had found someone to undo the worst of the damage and clean up the scars. He no longer sounded like one of those shambling golems, but would never speak again. And he seemed content with that. He had first used pen and paper to communicate with her, pen and paper and Tenenbaum to talk to the little ones. Now, he used his hands. Less than a year of it and he was already so fluent, even better than the girls – she often had to wonder what Suchong had done to make such a thing possible, and pushed the thought aside every time it came to her.

Today he smiled and signed _“Good morning”_ when she came down into the kitchen, handed her a steaming mug of coffee. Already dressed and ready for the day. 

“Ah, thank you.” __

_“You’re welcome.”_

He followed her out onto the porch, to enjoy a few moments of peace before the girls woke. She took a sip, and let the bitter, dark flavor rest over her tongue.

“I heard you, last night. When Jeanine woke crying. It woke me too.” She kept her eyes focused on the massive ash tree near the fence, at its shadow moving across the grass as the sun rose. “I heard you go to her room, and comfort her. What you said, now that I could not hear.” He let out a short bark of laughter. “But her, what she said, that I did hear. Thank you for not letting her wake the others and remind them also. I don’t know how –” Try as she might, she could never comfort them as Jack did. And now she looked at him, at the questions in his eyes. “I do not want to ask you, but when they wake up crying, when I wake up – and you, I know you do as well, and perhaps so much the better they cannot hear you. But I can, when you wake up. And I want to know –”

Jack grunted, held up a hand, set his mug down on the table beside the bench. _“I don’t remember.”_

“Don’t bullshit me. People might forget their dreams, and they’re children, but you’re – you’re you, I know you must remember something.”

 _“I remember Rapture.”_ A sign he had needed to invent, a combination of ‘lighthouse’ and ‘city.’ _“I remember it every day. But I don’t remember Rapture before I went back.”_

“Nothing? Nothing at all?” __

_“Nothing.”_

“But –” __

 _“You made sure I wouldn’t remember. I know – you and all the rest of them, Souchong, Fontaine –”_ Jack spelled their names one letter at a time, almost too quick for her to follow. “ _– didn’t want me to know anything. They could have told me to forget and I would have forgotten everything.”_

“If you could remember, would you?”  
 _  
“No. I’m happy they made me forget.”_

She stared. “Happy?” __

 _“I found enough to know it’s good I don’t remember.”_ His fingers moved faster and faster, gathering speed and working into a flurry of motion, his throat straining to barely moan. _“I learned what you did to make me, I learned what you put into my head, I learned what I did before I forgot, I learned enough to know I don’t want to know more, I don’t want to remember. The things I did, the things that happened to me, what happened wasn’t to me, it wasn’t –”_

Tenenbaum lunged and wrapped her hands around his. Jack didn’t struggle against her, shook to stillness at the touch. He looked at her hands around his, and dropped his head, eyes closed, not quite crying but almost sobbing as best he could. When she let go, he kept his hands closed tight, and finally looked up at her again.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ she signed.

His shoulders slumped and rose, and he shook his head, reached out and squeezed her shoulder with a faint smile. _“What happened in Rapture before I went back happened to someone else. None of it happened to me. Not ME. It happened to another person. Someone else did those things. None of that happened to me.”_ Jack looked around, and croaked out a laugh. _“What Fontaine gave me wasn’t real either. This, here, you, the girls, this is real. Ask me about that. Don’t ask me about things that aren’t real.”_

“All right.”

Jack nodded. He reached to her shoulder again, brushed a stray lock away and slid his fingers to her cheek – pulled away when Ruth stepped onto the porch to join them, climbed up to sit between them, leaned to kiss her.

“Good morning, Mama Tenenbaum.” She sat up on her knees to reach Jack’s cheek and give him a kiss of his own. “Good morning, Jack.” He smiled and pulled her into his lap, and she laughed gently. “Mama Tenenbaum, what’s for breakfast?”

“Porridge.”

“Can we have pancakes?”

“Not today, Ruthie.”

“But please?”

“Only on Sundays. Today is just Saturday.” __

“Jack, will you make pancakes?”

_“Pancakes are for Sunday.”_

Ruth pretended to pout, then gave up her little game and climbed into Tenenbaum’s lap to settle in for a long cuddle. The three of them sat quietly and watched the day come into the world without fanfare or announcement, save the voices of the remaining little ones waking. 

Tenenbaum knew she would be leaving soon. Knew that it would be best for the little ones, to let them forget her. But not yet. Not quite yet.

She finished her coffee and gently pushed Ruth away, Jack handing her his empty mug as Ruth climbed into his lap. She watched them sign to each other, recognizing barely half the words, and he set her down and led her barefoot onto the grass, hand in hand. He crouched to pick her up, so strong and careful and gentle, and Ruth laughed as Jack tossed her up into the air, to catch her and toss her again and again. Tenebaum looked from him to her, and back again, at both their faces. Faces as open and happy as any child’s ought to be.


End file.
